Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 3.djvu/70

 here, they have managed to while away the time famously."

"Well, I must say I should like to know how. It would need a vast amount of ingenuity to extract anything amusing out of our circumstances. I suppose they did not play at charades?"

"No, but they introduced the press and the theater."

"What? They had a newspaper?" exclaimed the American.

"They acted a comedy? " said Bell.

"That they did," said the Doctor. "When Parry wintered at Melville Island, he started both amusements among his men, and they met with great success."

"Well, I must confess, I should like to have been there," returned Johnson; "for it must have been rather curious work."

"Curious and amusing too, my good Johnson. Lieutenant Beechey was the theater manager, and Captain Sabina chief editor of the newspaper called The Winter Chronicle, or the Gazette of Northern Georgia.

"Good titles," said Altamont.

"The newspaper appeared daily from the 1st of November, 1819, to the 20th of March, 1820. It reported the different excursions, and hunting parties, and accidents, and adventures, and published amusing stories. No doubt the articles were not up to the Spectator or the Daily Telegraph, but the readers were neither critical nor blasé, and found great pleasure in their perusal."

"My word!" said Altamont. "I should like to read some of the articles."

"Would you? Well, you shall judge for yourself."

"What! can you repeat them from memory? "

"No; but you had Parry's Voyages on board the Porpoise, and I can read you his own narrative if you like."

This proposition was so eagerly welcomed that the Doctor fetched the book forthwith, and soon found the passage in question.

"Here is a letter," he said, "addressed to the editor:

"'Your proposition to establish a journal has been received by us with the greatest satisfaction. I am convinced that, under your directions, it will be a great source of amusement, and go a long way to lighten our hundred days of darkness.